The present invention is in the field of maximizing use of raw materials in a computer numerical controlled machine manufacturing environment.
It has become a common practice in furniture and cabinet manufacturing operations to utilize Computer Numeric Controlled routers to fabricate casework components from large sheets of material, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,942,021 and 3,931,501. Frequently, the flat casework components for an end-product are consecutively processed from the same sheet of material. Given that different components are different in sizes and shapes, tremendously amount of wastage could result from a lack of prior planning. Therefore, effective material utilization has become a major challenge in this type of manufacturing method.
In some cases, a software algorithm in a machine control may be utilized to automatically arrange the positioning of component cutting programs in such a manner as to minimize the amount of space between component profiles, thus consuming the least amount of material from a given sheet. This is commonly referred to as nesting. Nesting has significantly contributed to both the versatility and productivity of furniture and cabinet operations. However, even in a typical custom casework operation with nesting, as much as 30 to 50 percent of the final sheet from a production run may remain unused, thus, becoming off-fall material or off-fall sheets. Unless this material can be used for another product, it will be scrapped.
The first object of the present invention is to provide a software system for automatically nesting a plurality of individual part sub-programs, entered into a machine control on an individual basis, to achieve the optimum placement density on a sheet of raw material for maximum material conservation.
A further object is to automatically monitor and sort the off-fall material from a CNC cutting cycle, according to size, shape, and type, then utilize said off-fall as raw material in subsequent cutting cycles, based on an optimum nesting pattern.